Toulon – in Provence where the French Riviera start – is one of the cities in France with the most sunshine per year, lots of interesting architecture plus that it’s the main naval base of France, so we just had to make a tour to Toulon too.

Toulon Opera House from 1862 Southern France, August 2009

The first really big attraction we did see was the magnificent Toulon Opera House from 1862, with it’s gorgeous architecture. It’s the second-largest opera house in France, after the Palais Garnier in Paris by the same designer as Marseille and Avignon opera houses: Léon Féuchures.

Toulon has a history that is three thousand years old, when the Ligures settled there and the name is linked to Telona, the ancient Ligurian goddess of sources.

Needless to say, all of us bloggers were in good mood this glorious sunny day in this wonderful town.

Claudie and Anna having fun in the street of Toulon.

Soon we decided to spread us all out, to go on our own and then meet at one of the cafés later in a couple of hours instead.

The main reason for going to Toulon were that it would give us super shopping opportunities – which it did in some way – but the weather was just too georgous to spend indoors in shops!

I loved some of the more creative shop fronts, but for hubby and me it was far more tempting to explore this part of Toulon city rather than the actual shopping.

We would have needed more time for that, so we just have to come back some other time, don’t we?

The Toulon marina for private boats were like a magnet that draw us there. We had a really wonderful walk on the promenade along the calm water. It’s something special with marinas.

There is a limit on how much you can explore at one time – especially in that hot weather we had all the time in France and when you comes from a cooler country like for us Scandinavians.

Not to mentions the late nights every nights – you know how it is when a gang of bloggers get together, right? *giggles*

yes, this walk in Toulon was a nice moment! Don’t worry, Tor!!! You’ll visit Toulon another time! Anna did nice shopping on the harbour and I am curious to know about theXmas gift she bought there for her grandson. You learn me a lot, my Captain, about the Toulon’s opera!!!! I didn’t know it was the second largest opera-house in France!!!!

What a great post and how wonderful to be reminded of this day in Toulouse! A charming town with great architecture – well documented in your photos. Very nice slideshow; Love the Lifecruiser mirror pic

One of the nice things living in Switzerland was, that I could city-hop over the weekend – Toulon was more than once on my route. Once I got caught by the Mistral – oh boy – maybe you would have felt right at home – it was pretty cold. Nice slideshow!